Method of hacking brick



' July 12, 1960 A B. SEGUR EI'AL 2,944,587 I METHOD OF HACKING BRICK Filed 061:. 11, 1956 sw i4 39 2a I I I 0 1a 16' z'ajuamw 21 22 3 2 8 26 INVENTORS 7/ jgla 7 1,944,687 7 METHOD or HACKING BRICK Asa B. Segnr, Oak Park, Ill., and Howard G. Esch, Dearborn, Mich, assignors to Morris Clay Products C0,, a corporation of Illinois Filed on. 11, 1956, Ser. No. 615,401

6 Claims. (Cl. 214-152) This invention relates to a method of hacking brick and is to be read in conjunction with applicants concurrently filed applications, Serial No. 615,341, filed October 11, 1956, and Serial No. 615,269, filed October 11, 1956, covering apparatus for hacking brickand for withdrawing brick from a hack.

A few preliminary words on terminology will be helpful. A hack is a stack of bricks. A hack for kiln burning is a stack of bricks spaced so that heat may directly contact a substantial surface area; oft-he brick. A bench is a flat surface, like a pallet, upon which a hack is made, and a bench -caris a bench with rail wheels which can be moved through a tunnel kiln. A course is a straight; row of bricks, and in this disclosure means four bricks endwise in a straight line resting on one of their side surfaces. A ,flat is nine. parallel straight courses of brick positioned-in a-single plane," and a double flat is two flats, the brick ofonc flat resting upon and in registry with the brick; of the lower flat. In the claims, however, the terms course and flat? are ot limited to any ecific number r rows of bricks. The object of this invention is to provide a newand improved method of forming a flat of bricks, for kiln burning, and this requires an understanding of the'reason for spacing rows of brick ina flat; Referring to Figure 1, four courses of brick are shown. The numeral 10 identifies the bench upon which rests a flat of brieksll. A second flat 12 ofbricks in registry with those in 11 is shown and then above this flat and transversely thereto are the flats 13 and 14. The hack has a square, plan configuration with dimensions equal to the length of four bricks touching one another as in the flats 13 and 14.

If the rows of bricks in the two flats 11 and 12' were 1 equally spaced, then the. inside end of the brick. 23 engages only a, very small portion of the supportinggbrick 25 and the same is true of the brick at the other end. The load is not properly distributed and the corner at 27 of brick 23 or 25 all too frequently is damaged and the 'brick must be discarded. As shown in Figure 1, the

solid lines of the bricks in flats 11 and 12 are narrowly spaced at 15 and 16, broadly spaced at 17, 18, 19 and 2t), and again narrowly spaced at 21 and 22. Therefore,

in order to make a proper course automatically, some PatentedJuly 1 2, 19.60.

up by mechanical or human hands. Whenever a green brick is picked up, depending upon how slippery its surface, there will be some kind of a mark left on the surface, in the case of hand hacking, by the fingers. The damage may not show up until the bricks are taken down by the brick mason at the point of use, at which time they are rejected. a

p The feature of this invention is the moving of bricks on flat surfaces into a row of a selected number of bricks,

of then pushing the bricks onto a pattern table, and then moving the pattern table or the row-aligning brick assembly station at right angles to each other for a selected distance. The distance in which the relationship of these two members ischanged determines the spacing. By a simple mechanical device, any spacing in any sequence of spacing can be easily attained. These and such other objects as may hereinafter appear are attained in the embodiment of the invention shown in the accompanying drawings, wherein:

Figure 1 is a side elevation of three flats of brick and a part of a fourth properly hacked and resting on a bench; Figure 2 illustrates the spacing of twelve-inch Norm-an brick;-

Figure3 is a perspective view of a common ing on a bench;

Figure 4 is a schematic illustration of applicants principle of stacking brick; I I Figure 5 is a schematic view illustrating their method in its preferred form and as actually incorporated into the equipment in the two above-identified concurrently filed applications; and Figure 6 illustrates the hacking'of cylindn'calobjects. I, H Continuing to refer to the drawings, and particularly to Figure 4, the numeral 22 identifies a pattern. table once, the'table 22 and the row of bricks 2.9 'will moveover to the dotted-line position 30. A new row of bricks can thenbe pushed into-the position which row 29 is shown to occupy in Figure 4. This can be repeated until is wide and the inner spacing is narrow as shown in Figure 2.

The specific object of this invention'is to provide a method of making a flat so that the bricks need never be picked up for positioning, that is, need never be picked a supply of bricks in end-to-end relationship is first pushed onto a loading platform 31, see Figure4. Equip-- ment is provided for reciprocating this loading platform 31 along the line 32. When the platform is moved over into the dotted-line position 33., a wedge 34 comes down between the fourth and the fifth bricks on the platform 31 and then when the platform 31 is retracted back to the solid-line position in Figure 4, four bricks are left on the pattern table 22, as indicated. The pattern table is then moved to the left and the operation is repeated.

In part repeating, the equipmentadopted for placing the row on the table will depend upon the composition of the green brick or tile which is being hacked. Conceivably, the brick might be loaded into a vertical magazine adapted to drop 4 aligned brick onto the pattern table 22 at the positioning station 35. Or an arm holding. several bricks might swing over to this position, which applicants do use where they are stacking one flat of brick in registry with a lower fiat. This latter is illustrated in the hacking table in co-pending application Serial No. 615,341 filed.

method is providing a row of a selected number of bricks on a fiat surface such'as the loading platform 31 or the bottom of a magazine holding bricks above the posi# back resttion, etc.; next moving this row of bricks onto a pattern table, and then moving either the loading mechanism or the pattern table so that the row of bricks moves at right angles to the loading station so as to provide a selected spacing from the next row. i

In Figure 5, applicants schematically illustrate the method as practiced on the equipment shown in co-pending application Serial No. 615,341, filed October 11, 1956. Here a conveyor 36, subject to the action of the gate 37, delivers four bricks to a conveyor 38 which bricks are stopped in the position 39. Positioned adjacent to the conveyor is a second conveyor 40 which acts as the pattern table. A pusher 41 moves the row of bricks over to the position 42. Thereupon, an air cylinder actuates a piston 44 carrying a rack 45 operating on a gear 46 on a shaft 47 over which the conveyor 40 is entrained, and moves the conveyor so that the bricks are now in dotted-line row 48. This is repeated with other bricks and a successor so that one now has three rows 42, 48 and 49. The stroke of the piston rod 44 may be varied by many different mechanical means. As presented in the co-pending application, there is a piston on the far side of the same shaft 47 together with electrical means for operating one piston to provide one spacing and the other position to provide a different spacing.

When the square pattern has been formed, tongs adapted to grasp the bricks by their side and pick up the entire flat while maintaining the pattern are used to move the bricks from a pattern table overto a bench and in order to place one flat at right angles to the other fiat, the tongs on every other operation will be rotated around a vertical axis 90.

In the claims, applicants use the term units having in one plane a constant cross section in place of bricks because the method is applicable not only to parallelepiped bricks but also to parallelepiped tile. Additionally, in some claims, applicants have not used the words parallelepiped units because the method can be used for other shapes which are capable'of being positioned in a straight line on a flat surface. Thus, in Figure 6, applicants show ordinary cylindrical hollow tile which are used for drains, etc. These have in 'one plane a constant cross section, and yet they cannot be described as parallelepiped. They can, of course, be handled by the methods illustrated in Figures 4 and 5 and by the apparatus disclosed in the co-pending applications. The claims do not state that the units are for burning, but merely for heating. The reason for this is that there are many refractory bricks which are used for furnace walls which leave the. brick plant chemically bonded only. However, the claims are to be construed as limited to the ceramic art, and particularly to that branch of the artwherein comparatively inexpensive objects such as brick and tile are hacked and burned.

Having thus described our invention what we claim is:

1. The method of hacking rectangular brick into a flat which comprises the steps of successively moving rows of end-to-end brick laterally from a supporting ledge onto a flat surface so as to form parallel, registering, spaced rows of brick, and whenever a row is distant from the first row by a multiple of the length of a brick, of positioning that row so that its longitudinal median line will be spaced from the upper bearing surface of the brick of the front'row by a multiple of the length of the brick.

2. The method of hacking rectangular brick into a flat which comprises the steps of successively moving rows of end -to-end brick laterally from a supporting ledge onto a flat surface so as to form parallel, registering, spaced rows of brick, and whenever a row is distant from the first row by a multiple of the length of a brick, of positioning that row so that its longitudinal median line will be spaced from the out-side surface of the brick of the first row by a multiple of the length of the brick.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein each brick rests on that surface formed by its long and short dimensions with the middle dimension vertical.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein two rows of brick, one superposed upon the other, are handled in each step.

5. The method of forming a flat of rectangular bricks which comprises the steps of aligning several bricks endto-end into a row along a straight ledge, of pushing this row laterally onto a flat surface, of moving the flat surface away from the ledge by a distance exceeding the short dimension of the brick so as to provide room for the next row, and of repeating these three steps until a flat surface is exposed which is spaced from the first row by the length of a brick, and of positioning the next row of brick on the flat surface so that its longitudinal median line is spaced from the bearing surface of the first row by the length'of a brick.

6. The method of making a hack of rectangular brick which comprises repeating the steps of claim 1 until a substantially square flat of brick is formed, of then forming a second, similar flat and of positioning it on top of the first flat 'but with the bricks at right angles thereto, whereby the abutting ends of the brick of the upper flat will rest upon the median line of a brick below.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 

